Mamata unveils Metro network plan for city

Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee today unfolded a plan to construct an ambitious 11,000-crore rupees Metro Railway network to ease travel in and around the congested metropolis.

As part of the plan, the minister today laid the foundation stone for a Metro railway line between Barrackpore and Baranagar in the northern outskirts of the city along the BT road.

She said the 12.5-km line will have 10 stations and the entire line would run overground. Banerjee said that Railways would share with the Kolkata Metropolitan Corporation 50 per cent of the cost for relaying and repairing underground pipes carrying water from the Tallah pumping station along BT Road, that would suffer damage on account of the construction.

Fourteen railway projects would be implemented in the state some of which are already under various stages of construction, the minister said.

Speaking in the foundation stone-laying ceremony, Mamata took a swipe at the Left Front government for accusing her of spending huge sums on advertisement of inauguration of railway projects, arguing that it was an accepted protocol of her ministry to publicise them.

She said that CPI(M) in the state was spending crores of rupees on advertisement of its "so-called achievements", saying she failed to understand how centrally-sponsored projects like construction of deep tubells could be advertised by the state government claiming credit for them. The minister also laid the foundation stone for the extention of the Kanchrapara Sports Complex.